Good morning, this is John McCain, speaking to you at the end of an eventful week in the presidential campaign. All the talk today is about my opponents selection of his running mate. To his new running mate, my congratulations and Ill get back to you real soon on your debating opponent.

The week began with a debate of sorts between Senator Obama and me at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. In case you missed it, the discussion yielded the line of the week, and maybe even of the campaign, when Pastor Rick Warren asked my opponent a very serious question. He wanted to know at what point, in my opponents view, does a baby have human rights? Senator Obama thought about it for a moment, and came back with the reply that the question was, quote, above my pay grade.

Here was a candidate for the presidency of the United States, asked for his position on one of the central moral and legal questions of our time, and this was the best he could offer: Its above his pay grade. He went on to assure his interviewer that there is a, quote, moral and ethical element to this issue. Americans expect more of their leaders.

There seems to be a pattern here in my opponents approach to many hard issues. Whether its the surge in Iraq that has brought us near to victory, or the issue of campaign reform, or the question of offshore drilling, Senator Obamas speeches can be impressive. But when its time for straight answers, clear conviction, and decisive action, suddenly all of these responsibilities are  well, as he puts it, above my pay grade. As mottos of leadership go, it doesnt exactly have the ring of the buck stops here.

Often, too, Senator Obamas carefully hedged answers obscure more than they explain, and this was the case in his conversation with Rick Warren. Listening to my opponent at Saddleback, you would never know that this is a politician who long since left behind any middle ground on the abortion issue. He is against parental notification laws, and against restrictions on taxpayer funding for abortions. In the Illinois Senate, a bipartisan majority passed legislation to prevent the horrific practice of partial-birth abortion. Senator Obama opposed that bill, voting against it in committee and voting present on the Senate floor.

In 2002, Congress unanimously passed a federal law to require medical care for babies who survive abortions  living, breathing babies whom Senator Obama described as, quote, previable. This merciful law was called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Illinois had a version of the same law, and Barack Obama voted against it.

At Saddleback, he assured a reporter that hed have voted yes on that bill if it had contained language similar to the federal version of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Even though the language of both the state and federal bills was identical, Senator Obama said people were, quote, lying about his record. When that record was later produced, he dropped the subject but didnt withdraw the slander. And now even Senator Obamas campaign has conceded that his claims and accusations were false.

For a man who talks so often about hope, Senator Obama doesnt offer much of it in meeting this great challenge to the conscience of America. His extreme advocacy in favor of partial birth abortion and his refusal to provide medical care for babies surviving abortion should be of grave concern to reasonable people of goodwill on both sides of this issue. There is a growing consensus in America that we need to overcome narrow partisanship on this issue for both women in need and the unborn. We need more of the compassion and moral idealism that my opponents own party, at its best, once stood for. No one is above the law, and no one is beneath its protection.

Upholding these principles, and bringing Americans together on the side of life, is the work of leadership. And I can assure you that if I am president, advancing the cause of life will not be above my pay grade. Thanks for listening.

I find it quite interesting to see folks praising this as some kind of pro-life championship on John McCain's part, when nothing could be further from the truth.

McCain says this about Obama:

this is a politician who long since left behind any middle ground on the abortion issue

This is the clue, one among many in this carefully crafted nothing of a piece, that John McCain thinks there's "middle ground" on the unalienable rights of the unborn. In truth, there is no "middle ground" on issues of life and death. A PERSON is either allowed to be killed or they're not.

None of this is any surprise, of course, to the careful observer. John McCain has always played footsie with both sides in this.

But, John McCain's true service has always been to the side that continues to allow the deaths of thousands of American children EVERY SINGLE DAY.

The bottom line is that not a single child will be saved by voting for McCain rather than Obama. Not one.

And the true principle that lies at the heart of the issue will be obscured more by McCain than Obama.

Doesn't mean I support Obama. But people need to wake up and quit allowing themselves to be deceived by this crop of consummate liars. And that most certainly includes McCain.

53
posted on 08/23/2008 10:44:28 AM PDT
by EternalVigilance
(So, how does the new Whig fit??)

What do you expect from people who don’t recognize a difference between dead and alive? They define the lives of people they have no use for as less than human in one way or another. It’s easier to abort or euthanize someone if they deny their humanity. The irony is that in so doing, they actually deny their own humanity, having traded it off to Satan.

How about the children that are at the embryonic stage of their development, the ones you think are just fine to kill?

How about the children who are the product of rape or incest that you think should be killed for the sins of their fathers?

How about the children murdered with the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars YOU gave to Planned Parenthood?

How about the children unfortunate enough to reside in the womb of a mother who lives in a State that falls within your Stephen A. Douglas, Gerald R. Ford, Ron Paul, fake federalist position that State's rights trumps the unalienable right to life?

I thank God I was born. But I wasn't born yesterday.

56
posted on 08/23/2008 10:54:47 AM PDT
by EternalVigilance
(So, how does the new Whig fit??)

>> How about the children unfortunate enough to reside in the womb of a mother who lives in a State that falls within your Stephen A. Douglas, Gerald R. Ford, Ron Paul, fake federalist position that State's rights trumps the unalienable right to life? <<

I never understood these freepers and their "true conservative" candidates who think all the problems in this country would go away if we just punt every devisive issue "back to the states" to sort out. States Rights, States Rights, States Rights, blah blah blah. My state government already has enough "rights" to pass all kind of laws affecting the lives of its citizens (our Governor signed an executive order telling pharmacists they have to dispense abortion pills to any woman who requests one or they can have their license revoked), I don't want to give them any MORE power over my life. What about the right of individuals? What about the right to life that is GURANTEED by the Consitution? Is there some section that says "this constitution shall not be construed to guranteed life and liberty nationally, but rather shall be decided on a state-by-state basis" that I missed?

The way you cited Stephen Douglas is an excellent example and it seems many of these "true conservatives" like Fred Thompson would have been Douglas Democrats if they were alive in 1860 (awww, gee whiz, slavery's wrong, but we can't have the federal government intervene and actually pass some law to protect the guaranteed right to freedom in the Constitution) Did these people sit through the whole lesson on slavery in America in their history class? We sure as heck didn't get rid of slavery in America by "letting the states decide"

Do they really think if Roe v. Wade is overturned some socialist state like Mass. is going to say "oh, now that it's up to us, let's restrict abortion here". Seriously. Here in the people's Republic of Illinois, our legislature won't even pass parental notification laws.

What is wrong with some "conservatives"? They seem to have no problem with tyrannical government and abriging the rights of life, liberty, and property as long as it's done at the state level.

Seven of the nine sitting justices were put there by Republican Presidents, mostly more conservative ones than John McCain will ever be on his best day.

And not one of these "justices" has the brains, the principles, or the courage to stand up against their fellow judicial oligarchs on behalf of the personhood of the unborn. All but one are basically legal positivists.

More than any other thing I know of, this fallacy is what is destroying the foundations of our liberty, as our country continues to be daily steeped in the blood of the innocents.

And so, any claims you make along this line consequently leave me cold.

65
posted on 08/23/2008 11:58:05 AM PDT
by EternalVigilance
(So, how does the new Whig fit??)

If you don’t remember, Romney saw a little baby in a woman’s womb with ultrasound. That changed his mind totally and existentialy. That is the point. There is no going back at all. Every woman should have an ultrasound to see the little baby growing inside her and watch the monitor. It’s clear.

In the slavery debate, the central moral question of the day, Douglas came down on the side of states’ rights as being supreme to the unalienable rights of human beings.

In the abortion debate, McCain, Ron Paul and others take the exact same position.

Saying “Let the states decide,” when you’re talking about the God-given and therefore unalienable rights to life and liberty of the people is at best a gross misunderstanding of what America is, and at worst a cynical ploy that serves as an excuse to ignore the demands of your sacred oath of office.

That’s what makes this piece of writing so horrid.

Judge Blackmun, the author of the majority decision in Roe v. Wade, said in the text of the decision that if the unborn child was a PERSON, they were therefore protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

John McCain, by now saying that life begins at conception, is admitting that they ARE a PERSON, but in any numbers of his policy positions says that you can still kill them!

This is wicked, and represents the destruction of the very basis of our liberty as described in the Declaration of Indendence.

There’s no getting around it: McCain is WORSE than Blackmun.

69
posted on 08/23/2008 1:53:20 PM PDT
by EternalVigilance
(So, how does the new Whig fit??)

Romney “changed his position” after seeing polling numbers that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that his decades of extreme leftism and radical support for abortion, the gay agenda, gun-banning, socialized medicine, etc., wouldn’t sell in a Republican presidential primary.

Wake up.

70
posted on 08/23/2008 1:55:49 PM PDT
by EternalVigilance
(So, how does the new Whig fit??)

Romney changed his position after seeing polling numbers that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that his decades of extreme leftism and radical support for abortion, the gay agenda, gun-banning, socialized medicine, etc., wouldnt sell in a Republican presidential primary.
________________________________________

Yes...

I saw an ultra sound in 1978...my youngest child...

But decades before that I knew “it was a child”

Even in 2002, 25 years later, Romney was still ignoring the fact that the being in the womb was a baby, anjd argued for the right to be an abortion pushing Gov of a liberal state...

Since Romney is too stupid and to uneducated to know the contents of the womb is a BABY..

He is too stupid and uneducated to be VP and maybe POTUS

can he even find his dog house door ????

How stupid do you have to be not to know WITHOUT seeing an ultra sound that there is a baby in there ???????

You know, at the Saddleback conference, when McCain was asked when life begins, he said unequivocally -- at conception.

One would wonder, then, why he would then make exceptions for rape and incest.

I have no desire to abandon common ground with anyone who thinks that, but it does represent my profound disappointment with McCain as a leader or as an intellectual. He is wholly incapable of consistency on this issue, because he does not understand it. If he does not understand it, he cannot defend it properly, and he unwittingly gives credence to the idea that abortion is just a matter of personal choice.

77
posted on 08/25/2008 6:34:52 AM PDT
by outlawcam
(Would you rather shout at the devil from across the aisle, or have him whisper in your ear?)

Because of the principle of self-defense, the exceptions for rape and incest must remain legal ... pregnancy does increase mortality thus a female who is raped or parents who discover pregnancy due to incest must be able to protect. BUT, if the pregnancy termination does not happen early, immediately, then the self-defense should not be an automatic death sentence for an innocent other. And again, exceptions should not argue the rule.

78
posted on 08/25/2008 6:40:42 AM PDT
by MHGinTN
(Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)

The principle of self-defense does not apply here, because the baby is not responsible for the attack on the mother. The baby is the result of the attack, and thus should not be held responsible for the actions of his or her parents.

79
posted on 08/25/2008 8:07:39 AM PDT
by outlawcam
(Would you rather shout at the devil from across the aisle, or have him whisper in your ear?)

Thank you for expressing your opinion, calmly. I have expressed my opinion,a lso. The complexity of rights is not easily settled, but it’s certain the current state of the issues is screwed up to a demonic level. And the Democrat candidates for Pres and veep take a question of when the unborn should have rights and twist it to address the issue of when an indiviual life begins in order to obfuscate as much as possible to protect the evil we now endure.

80
posted on 08/25/2008 8:20:13 AM PDT
by MHGinTN
(Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)

"McCain as a leader ... is wholly incapable of consistency on this issue, because he does not understand it." Perhaps John McCain understands not only the issue of when an individual life begins (as he said, at conception), but also has a grasp on the complexity of conflicting rights which many refuse to apprehend. When our technology reaches the point that a newly conceived human can be carefully removed from a womb and placed in another surrogate womb, THEN the issue of right to live will be paramount.

Because of the right to not be forced into surrogacy which increases mortality risk, coupled with the inability to immediately transplant a living being from a womb without killing the newly conceived, we are at a point which requires the principle of self-defense to play a role in the issue.

After decades in the Congress, John McCain has probably had occasion to think on these things and to think upon the actual difficulties in changing the perspectives and the policies.

81
posted on 08/25/2008 8:27:56 AM PDT
by MHGinTN
(Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)

I really have no desire, as I said, to abandon common ground with those who agree with me on 98% of the abortions performed. However, as the matter is pressed, I have no choice but to defend the plain truth of the right to life and John McCain's rejection of it.

John McCain has taken two irreconcilable positions.

That life begins at conception, and

That the right to life is subject to the discretion of man or his institutions, who determine that the circumstances surrounding the creation of that life are too unpleasant.

Either the right to life is a matter of human choice or it isn't. If it is, as McCain's position suggests, then its sole claim to protection is positive law -- not natural law.

If this is true, then there is no objective standard by which the degree of misfortune can be consistently judged -- giving credence to the notion that the right to life ought to be subject to the choice of the mother, and not the government, and certainly not God.

82
posted on 08/26/2008 7:21:00 AM PDT
by outlawcam
(Would you rather shout at the devil from across the aisle, or have him whisper in your ear?)

Sorry to point this out, but to you those are position taken, and to your reasoning they are irreconcilable. Paul Bagala has stated the same enigma and it is plain that Begala is a democrat party hack who will lie or deceive or obfuscate to empower the democrats at every turn of phrase if possible. He presents that as irreconcilable because he wants to frustrate pro-life efforts, by presenting the problems as impossible to solve in a 'perfect' pro-life fashion. He relies upon the unspoken idea that it is not pro-life to force a pregnant female, impregnated via rape or incest, to carry the baby to term. Let's look at that, even though Begala relies upon the illogic of an undistributed middle.

It may be impossible for your mind to reconcile the fact that individual life begins at conception and the self-defense rights of a woman or girl who has been raped, and such either or mentality does fashion the irreconcilable, but courts and natural law deal with this sort of thing often, in reality.

Our technology has not reached the point of being able to successfully transplant an implanted embryo, yet. We will reach that point if civilization continues for another twenty years. At that point the way society deals with what you deem irreconcilable will change from the reality of today, if we adopt perspectives now which value the little ones from conception onward. But that doesn't relieve the reality of today's conflicting rights of the woman/mother and the rights of the newly conceived.

Presently, the debates over embryonic stem cell exploitation, which Mitt Romney has just as convoluted in his supposedly 'now' pro-life mind, are heading in the wrong direction under democrat, liberal demands. Even men like Orrin Hatch are using an unclear definition to exploit the situation and authorize the dissection of alive human embryonic aged humans who have not been implanted in a human body. [And to illustrate how complex the issues can get, I referenced 'human body' instead of female body because the sexual degenerate class are already trying to get embryos implanted in homosexual male surrogates. And some research technology has tumbled off in that direction!]

If our culture does not now take the perspective that even embryos conceived in petri dishes are humans at an earliest age, then the resolution of conflicting interests, the rights of the newly conceived and the self-defense rights of the impregnated will not be correctly resolved because one class is becoming more disenfranchised rather than more enfranchised. Fighting embryonic exploitation now works to enfranchise the newly conceived and thus move our technology/research int he direction of learning how to protect even an implanted embryo while recognizing the right of a raped female who becomes pregnant from the crime of another to defend her life by not being forced to continue a pregnancy which increases her mortality risk through no fault of her own.

You may not wish to consider the above reasoning, for whatever reason you hold privately, but that is a more in-depth look at the complexity and the conflicting compelling interests. The idea way to deal with pregnancy from rape or incest is to save both innocent parties, but our technology has yet to relieve courts of that enigmatic case, so the courts settle such problems by assigning greater or lesser interest/right based upon the societal values, and our current direction in values is into the democrat/liberal gutter. You won't change the trend by demanding and either or of extremes, but many continue to harbor that dream.

83
posted on 08/26/2008 8:01:54 AM PDT
by MHGinTN
(Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)

It may be impossible for your mind to reconcile the fact that individual life begins at conception and the self-defense rights of a woman or girl who has been raped, and such either or mentality does fashion the irreconcilable, but courts and natural law deal with this sort of thing often, in reality.

As I explained before, the principle of self-defense does not apply to the baby, because the baby is not attacking the mother. The baby is completely innocent in the matter that left the woman with the baby inside of her.

The time for self-defense is at the point of offense, and against only the person attacking.

Your argument rests on the premise that the baby is an "object" to be discarded and not a "person" with unalienable rights. However, what started this discussion was that McCain himself said that life begins at conception, which makes treating one as an object under certain circumstances (e.g., the woman was raped) logically problematic.

Just because the answer is difficult to bear (for the mother, et al) doesn't make the logic invalid.

84
posted on 08/26/2008 12:11:35 PM PDT
by outlawcam
(Would you rather shout at the devil from across the aisle, or have him whisper in your ear?)

Your effort to present a naive face is stunning; you are correct in half of your effort, the baby is not the issue of self defense, the mortality risk imposed upon the female is the focus of self defense from the mortality risk forced upon her. That an innocent alive unborn is the means by which the female's life is endangered seems to elude you. You cannot have granted to you the right to force a female to bring into the world your offspring, and that is at the heart of the self-defense issue. Perhaps a couple of questions can help you comprehend the complexity:

1) Does being pregnant increase mortality rsik at all?

2) Is it pro-life to force a female impregnated by rape to carry the baby to term?

3) Are the rights of the female of zero consequence to you? ... Please note, she is an innocent also, being put at risk by the crime committed against her, so she does have self-defense rights where she has been forced into risk she did not ask for.

I'm sorry that your effort to present this as ONLY an either or with your carefully crafted either and or is not sufficient to define the real issues, but there it is.

Until the entirety of the complexity is addressed--since the self-defense parameter is real and has merit--there will not arise a meaningful end to this assault on the alive unborn because it is incorrect--a false trail--to address only the rights of the alive innocent unborn. But remember, this effort must be focused upon the earliest age of the newly conceived for dealing with the rights of the impregnated innocent. Courts call these 'compelling interests'.

85
posted on 08/26/2008 12:57:59 PM PDT
by MHGinTN
(Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)

mortality risk imposed upon the female is the focus of self defense from the mortality risk forced upon her.

The mortality risk was forced upon her by the rapist, not the baby. Thus, the baby cannot be held accountable for the actions of the rapist.

But if you hold a "pro-life" position, you should really check your argument anew. For if the baby CAN, in principle, be held to account for the risk not of his or her own making, then whether the baby comes as a consequence of rape or incest is not important to determine if the baby can be killed at the whim of the mother whose mortality rate has increased.

The mortality rate of the mother only marginally increases anyway. Abortion results in close to 100% mortality rate for the baby -- and has other detrimental effects on the mother. Therefore, even by that standard, justice demands that the risk effected by the pregnancy on the mother does not warrant the ultimate response against the innocent baby, as you suggest.

87
posted on 08/26/2008 3:29:05 PM PDT
by outlawcam
(Would you rather shout at the devil from across the aisle, or have him whisper in your ear?)

‘In the abortion debate, McCain, Ron Paul and others take the exact same position.”

I’ve never believed that McCain was pro-life, but I think that yours is a very superficial (and self-serving) analysis of RP’s (and Baldwin’s) position on abortion.

If Congress declares that life begins at conception, is it not true that states (such as SD) can immediately begin to pass legislation abolishing murder of the pre-born? What power have the states delegated to the federal government which would permit the executive branch to directly prosecute abortion doctors? Here is RP’s HR2597 which is the starting point - where are all the “conservative” co-sponsors?

The abortion holocaust did not drop from a meteorite, and it will not go away until many steps are taken at many levels of government (civil, church, individual and family). The very first step to end abortion - NOT to regulate it - is to declare the personhood of the pre-born. The next steps involve the state legislatures and state level prosecutors.

But nothing will change in the long run unless faith and family are restored. That will require a return to preaching the Gospel in our churches, the defunding and shuttering of pagan academies also known as communist government schools, the winding down of the welfare state, the end of confiscatory taxation etc. The federal gov’t - its size, its unconstitutional power grabs, its judicial tyranny, its aiding and abetting of the destruction of the family - is an almost insurmountable obstacle to the goal of restoring the right to life of the unborn.

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